2 Chronicles 8-9 The Glorious Reign of Solomon

we are in the book of second Chronicles so I'd like you to turn there if you would please and the eighth chapter we've been dealing with the reign of Solomon and Solomon of course came after the reign of David and the the reign of David in Israel was such a wonderful season I mean he had his issues and there were there were things that came up that were very very challenging but David's heart was a heart toward God he you know we got to remember what that means you know when God said about David he's a man after my own heart obviously that didn't mean he was a man without mistakes and we have to be careful not to try to impose that because David was a man who was very fallible dealt with he was a very passionate man which is what got him into trouble a lot of times his passion for various things such as women you know I mean I'm not trying to be crude or weird it's that's the reality I mean you know when he when he saw Bathsheba you know I mean his passion overwhelmed him and even overwhelmed his better sense of right and wrong morality at that point and and he did what he should not have done and and yet when David was confronted he repented and that is one of the things that that that lent itself to to make David a man after God's own heart not the only thing by any means but but one of the things and I love that about David he was he was a man who repented of his sin and you know I wish I was that quick sometimes to repent but sometimes you know we make excuses we try to justify ourselves we try to explain it away it's really not that bad or I've got an excuse I've got a reason it's their fault it's your fault Lord it's the woman you gave me that's not me necessarily saying that that's Adam quoting Adam I I don't think I've blamed my wife lately for anything but it's not I wouldn't put it past me the gene is there you know but David was a man who quit repented we come to the the reign of Solomon and Solomon's reign if I had to come up with one word for Solomon's reign it would be glorious from the standpoint that God enabled this man to have so much wisdom and so much wealth that the TAT the temple that he built the palace that he built for himself the way he ran the country was really glorious and we're gonna see here in these verses that things like gold and silver became commonplace in David or in Solomon's kingdom it was a time of great prosperity but one of the things we've learned about prosperity from our study of God's Word is that there are great dangers that go along with prosperity and of course the great danger is that we start thinking we don't have to maybe stick as closely as we otherwise might to the Word of God things are going so good obviously God's pleased with me or whatever the case might be and we just begin to kind of we begin to wander the book of Chronicles doesn't tell us about Solomon's wanderings all it give we have to go to Kings to read those all it tells us is how the symptoms and the the environment was the stage was set for that sort of a thing to happen you might remember that back in the book of Deuteronomy Moses actually addressed the issue of one day Israel having a king and the Lord through Moses laid down some stipulations related to how the king should conduct himself as the king of Israel and let me remind you of these by putting them up on the screen for you from Deuteronomy chapter 17 it goes like this you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose one from among your bread others you shall set as king over you you may not put a foreigner over you who is not your brother only he must not acquire many horses for himself or caused the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses since the Lord has said to you you shall never return that way again remember Egypt is a picture of sin we're not to go back there and he shall not acquire many wives for himself lest his heart turn away nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold Solomon did all these things and it's really kind of crazy in light of the fact that he was the wisest man on the face of the earth but I don't care how wise you are if you get to the place where you think you're smarter than God you will come unraveled and you know even those of us who don't begin to have the the wisdom of Solomon can still think that we're smarter than God and think that somehow I can do this and it's gonna be okay Solomon knew the Word of God he knew what it said he knew what it said about don't go to Egypt to get horses don't amass great quantities of silver and gold don't have many wives he knew that he knew those things but there's something about human nature that somehow just kind of takes over in situations like that and we convince ourselves it's gonna be okay it's gonna be all right don't worry about it it you know and and what that is basically do now Solomon was was violating the word of God you and I have not only the Word of God we have the conviction of the Holy Spirit you understand don't you that there's basically three ways that God speaks to people we are all born with an innate conscience and that conscience is kind of a a right and wrong meter that is hardwired into every one of us and I believe it's a it's a leftover if you will from us being created in the image of God and that that conscience is there if nothing else is there if you've never read the Word of God or anything else the conscience is there to guide you now the problem with the conscience is that it can get messed up it Paul in the New Testament talks about people having their consciences seared as with a hot iron meaning like how you would feel the flesh of an animal that just had been branded some of you from the farm might have ever been involved perhaps in in branding of some kind maybe maybe you've had a really bad burn yourself and as that grows or heals rather it forms this very hard crust where the skin cells have been burned away Paul says that can happen to a person's conscience so a conscience is a great thing to have but it's not perfect right we can be taught to ignore our conscience we can be taught to have a different whole idea related to our conscience so there's there's something else that that we have that once we get saved now we have the Word of God we have the Scriptures to help us to understand also a sense of morality and Solomon had that as well and then as believers in Jesus we have a third option to keep us on course and that's of course the Holy Spirit living within us and we have that conviction process that the Holy Spirit will impose upon us when we've got off course and the the thing about those three things and they're wonderful each in their own way all of them can be resisted or and or neglected or ignored we can ignore our conscience we can ignore the Word of God and we can ignore the conviction of the Holy Spirit that's called greed the Holy Spirit so we can all do that you know what I've done it many many times I have not I've chosen not to listen not to respond and the danger about not responding to the Holy Spirit is that it gets harder to respond to him the next time and pretty soon it's it's almost impossible to hear his voice and one thing I love about David is that when he was confronted with this sin he broke he responded rather than you know holding it in and I'm you know whatever Solomon on the other hand and again we don't read about it here in chronicles but elsewhere we read that Solomon straight from the Lord toward the end of his life and what was the cause all the things we saw up on the screen there in Deuteronomy chapter 17 all the things that he knew and knowingly violated because of whatever pride or or and we know that some of it was love you know the Bible tells us that that Solomon held fast to his wives in love Solomon was a man of peace and part of the peace process with other nations was to marry the daughter of whatever king that nation you know had and it was a political move on his part and and this this would happen I mean this was not uncommon where a princess would go over to a neighboring country and marry someone in that country of high nobility and possibly the king in order to establish or cement peaceful relations between these two countries Solomon did that seven hundred times it says he had 700 wives of noble birth and these were again political marriages and you know from a political standpoint I suppose you could say he was perpetuating peace but from a moral standpoint God was itwas was actively and knowingly violating the Word of God oh and by the way he added 300 concubines onto that list of 700 wives he had 1,000 women those women eventually be coming from neighboring countries of pagan origin eventually began to complain to Solomon about the fact that there in Israel there was no place for them to worship their gods and you know I can imagine they probably talked to him about it over and over and over and when you got a thousand ladies chiming in your ears I mean I can you know some of us guys it's one is enough right in fact more than enough sometimes for us to get off the dime and do what we do or or whatever she's encouraging us to do imagine that times 1,000 right women you know actively pursuing Solomon for to give them a place to worship and eventually he just got broken down and Solomon he across the Kidron Valley there from Jerusalem he began to build temples for his wives places for them to worship their pagan gods and that's how it started all right all right all right you know doesn't the Bible say something about a drip drip drip you know of water or something like that how it just eventually just kind of overcomes you but anyway the point is he built those pagan temples and then after a period of time they wore him down further and he went to those pagan temples and then after a while he began to worship at those pagan temples anyway we're gonna see as we get into chapter 8 here that some of these things kind of coming unraveled a little bit but chapter 8 begins this way in verse 1 it says at the end of 20 years in which Solomon had built the house of the Lord and his own house Solomon rebuilt the cities that Hiram had given hid to him and settled the people of Israel in them stop there for just a moment it sounds like King Hiram and that's Hiram from Damascus it sounds like Hiram just gave in some cities that's not exactly what happened Solomon first gave those cities to Hiram by the way we're talking about Galilee this is the area where Jesus grew up all right and Solomon ruled over those cities up there in that area of Galilee and because Hiram had provided him with wood for building not only the temple but his own palace and craftsmen and workers and they floated the logs down the you know the waterway and and they you know worked alongside him doing these things Solomon as part of the payment for the things that Hiram had done Solomon said here are these cities up in Galilee and they're they're yours and the Bible tells us in 1st Kings that Hiram went to go see these wonderful cities that Solomon had given him and he was totally unimpressed and even wrote or sent a messenger back to Solomon and said my brother what is it you have given me here and he was just and he never did anything with them I forget I forget how much he paid it was like something like a hundred twenty talents of gold I forget don't quote me on that but eventually solemn and realized that Hiram wasn't doing anything with these cities and so he bought them back because Solomon amidst all of his other issues false and whatever he was a builder and he was a man who had great vision and he could take something that you and I might look at and go blue which is what Hiram did when he saw those cities in Galilee Solomon looked at those cities and said no we can build those up we can make those into something really really special and so he didn't and he had the resource to do it as well I mean he practically had unlimited wealth so he began to build up those those cities up there in Galilee and they became part of you know that area that that that Jews lived in the whole story of this thing is yeah it was 120 talents of gold let me put this up really quick on the screen I I already told you the story but it's that's where it's found first Kings chapter 9 it tells us King Solomon gave 20 towns in Galilee the Hiram king of Tyre because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and juniper and gold that he wanted but when Hiram went from tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him he was not pleased with them he says what kind of towns are these you've given me my brother and he asked and he called them the land of Kabul which basically means worthless and it says a name they have to this day interestingly enough the Jews continued to have a very negative attitude toward Galilee do you remember that you remember when they start talking about Jesus there's a prophet he's here he's in Jerusalem really where is he from he's from Galilee they went huh they said can anything good come out of you know Nazareth in Galilee I mean it was considered to be Kabul well you know kind of like Hyrum said here and and it tells us at the end of that passage that Hyrum had paid 100 trade talents of gold anyway now they're back in Jewish hands Solomon has built them up and it says in verse 3 and Solomon went to him off Zuba and took it he built Tadmor in the wilderness and all the store cities that he built in Hamas he also built up ER beth horon and lower beth horon fortified cities with walls gates and bars and they all off and all the store cities that Solomon had and all the cities for his chariots and the cities for his horsemen and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem in Lebanon and in all the land of his Dominion the store cities you know these outlying cities you know he would he would basically build them up and and they they'd be places to store stuff military hardware horses chariots food water in case of emergency you know the this is kind of Solomon building up the the the government to the you know the the system of of just taking care of the people that's what's kind of going on here and and you'll notice that it says here in verse six that there were cities for chariots and cities for horsemen interestingly enough archaeologists in the city of Megiddo have uncovered unearthed horse stalls huge lots of horse stalls which they believe date back to the time of Solomon and that was one of the store cities that he built up and so you can still see some of what Solomon built visible today if that isn't amazing enough it says in verse seven that all the people who were left of the Hittites the amorite s' the Perizzites the Hivites and the Jebusites who were not of Israel from their descendants who were left after them in the land whom the people of Israel had not destroyed these Solomon drafted as forced labor and so they are to this day but of the people of Israel Solomon made no slaves for his work they were soldiers and his officers the commanders of his chariots and his horsemen and we're told that these were the chief officers of King Solomon two hundred and fifty who exercised authority over the people so Solomon had a built-in labor force and that was basically all the Canaanites that were left in the land that should have been destroyed when Israel came into the land but who weren't and so Solomon conscripted them to forced labor verse 11 Solomon brought Pharaoh's daughter up from the city of Dave to the house that he'd built for her for he said my wife shall not live in the house of David king of Israel for the places to which the Ark of the Lord has come are holy now this is an interesting statement because we don't have any record of the Ark of the Covenant ever coming into David's house and we don't know for sure that it even did but it's possible that when David brought the ark into Jerusalem and he's the one who did that it could be that he pitched a tent just adjacent to his home and because we know that he did put it in a tent and it's it's very possible then that this was kind of considered all one residence if you will and Solomon who married this Egyptian princess feels that it would be wrong this is while he's still he's still thinking you know he's not completely whacked out yet he believes that it's wrong to take this pagan princess and house her in a home that was so close to the Ark of the Covenant and so he builds her her own Palace simple option I suppose if you have all the money in the world but it goes on to say then Solomon offered a burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar of the Lord that he had built before the vegetable and that that altar you'll remember vegetable means porch and and this is the porch of the temple do you remember that we saw last week Solomon built another altar because while they were dedicating the temple and sacrificing animals there were way too many to sacrifice on the altar of sacrifice that was just out from the steps of the temple and so he built another altar and he's still using it and that's really all this is kind of saying verse 13 as the duty of each day required offering according to the commandment of Moses for the Sabbath the New Moon's and the three annual feasts the feast of unleavened bread the feast of weeks and the feast of booths according to the ruling of David his father he appointed the divisions of the priests for their service and the Levites for their offices of praise and ministry before the priests as the duty of each day required and the gatekeepers in their divisions at each gate for so David the man of God had commanded and they did not turn aside from what the king had commanded the priests and levites concerning any matter and concerning the Treasuries so he's following his his father's design at this time thus was accomplished all the work of Solomon from the day the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid until it was finished so the house of the Lord was completed and then Solomon went to Ezzy on goober and ilat' on the shore of the sea and that's referring by the way to the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom and Hiram sent to him by the hand of his servants ships and servants familiar with the sea and they went to OFIR together with the service of Solomon and brought from there four hundred and fifty talents of gold and brought it to King Solomon by the way four hundred and fifty talents of gold is 17 tons of gold okay the Israelites never did become a seafaring people the people's the the Phoenicians people who lived on the coast tyre and sidon they were a seafaring people they were very boat worthy they they knew what they were doing on the water because Solomon had a good relationship with Hiram he together with Hiram God and you know boats and and went to places where they could get gold and which says here was a place called Oh fear and there they came back with 17 tons and we're gonna find here that every year tons of gold were brought into Solomon's kingdom every year so he you know when we think about even used the term filthy-rich that really doesn't begin to describe Solomon's kingdom it was way beyond that I mean it was opulence beyond anything that we could know chapter 9 now when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon she came to Jerusalem to test him with hard questions having a very great retinue and camels bearing spices and very much gold and precious stones and when she came to Solomon she told him all that was on her mind and Solomon answered all her questions there was nothing hidden from Solomon that he could not explain to her and that amazing you can well imagine that a man like this with so much wisdom so much wealth so much land there was never more land in Israel than during the time of Solomon word gets around and you know traders who are moving in and through and around the the known world at that time or bringing word with them about this incredible King in Israel and the Bible says here that a woman who was queen of an area of called Sheba which we believed to be in Arabia and we believe that her Trek to go see Solomon was somewhere around 1200 miles which back in those days was a long time considering the fact that there are no Best Westerns along the way or you know you know traveling was was a very very challenging thing to do in those days and it was very dangerous because of bandits and so forth and you'll notice that it says here in these verses that she brought a huge retinue in other words she had a huge group of people that came with her and it says did you see in there that it said they brought much gold they the fact of the matter is they'll give us an amount later on it was in the tonnage that's how much they brought you can imagine a big group of people like that might be a target for bandits you know along the way anyway it was a very very challenging thing to do and yet she made the trip why because she heard there was a wise man in Israel and she had questions she had questions about life and who of us doesn't have questions about life and she wanted answers and being of nobility she probably had wise men in her own court and they couldn't answer the questions that were put to her ass presumably and she is willing to make this 1200 mile trek to go see this king let me ask you a question do you think you might have done that had you heard had you heard that there was a king like that and you're living in a world unlike our own that doesn't have instant communication with all parts of the world no satellite video and and so forth you want to go talk to somebody over there you got to go over there and and and here's the question would you have made that trip if you had the resources to be able to make it or to try to at least the reason I'm asking that question is because the effort of this woman is actually something that Jesus referenced during his public ministry he talked about her in fact he said this let me put this on the screen it's in Matthew chapter 12 he said the Queen of the South and he's speaking of the Queen of Sheba will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it why four she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold someone greater than Solomon is here and what Jesus is basically saying to the people of Israel and particularly the religious leaders is that here's this woman who came 1200 miles in all the difficulty and danger that traveling involved back in those days and she was willing to make that effort for a man like Solomon and guess what there's one who is greater than Solomon who is here now he's speaking of himself and you guys aren't even lifting a finger to come listen and if you do come to listen it's only to try to find something to criticize or to use against me so that you can arrest me and put me through your kangaroo court and condemn me and kill me and he says you know what the Queen of the South is the one who's going to be your judge and she will rise up and she will speak of the effort that she went to to go from what he calls the ends of the earth which I'm sure 1,200 miles back in those days was the ends of the earth you know with travel being what it was can you imagine doing a 1200 mile trip on a camel lord help us all you know 1200 miles is tough in a car you know it says in verse 3 that when the Queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon the house that he had built the food at his of his table the seating of his officials and the attendance of his servants and their clothing in other words how they were clothed and so forth his cup bearers and their clothing she noticed everything and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the Lord there was no more breath in her which is to say it took her breath away so the Queen of Sheba were told earlier had all of her questions answered she was amazed but she didn't just hear wisdom she saw wisdom do you remember what the Bible tells us about wisdom wisdom is proved right by all her children right and what that means is you know you don't just hear it you see it in other words your offspring the things that come from you also show wisdom just as much as your words do and that is what it says here that the queen of sheba looked at all these things and she took note of all of the things going on and you know she sees even all the organization she sees that there's just this master administration going on in his kingdom down to his cup bearers and what they were wearing and his servants and what they were wearing you know and she was so impressed by everything it says she even took note of the food that was on his table and you might say what exactly does that mean what it refers to basically is the amount you know we actually have to go to King's to find out let me put it on the screen for you check this out from first Kings chapter 4 it says Solomon's provision for one day was thirty cores of fine flour now a core and you and you multiply it by 30 here comes to about 1,500 gallons if you were to take fine flour and put it in a gallon container to make bread and things like that 1,500 gallons a day a day and then it goes on to say and sixty cores of meal which is ground up not quite to the point of flour but ground up like you know wheat or barley or or whatever so now you double the number I just gave you ten fat oxen and 20 pasture-fed cattle a hundred sheep besides deer gazelles roebucks and fattened fowl that's one day one day so can you imagine she's she's taking all of this in you know the Queen of Sheba was quite a quite a lady I mean she was an observer and she's watching all this and it's like goodness gracious verse five and she said to the king the report was true that I heard in my own land of your word and of your wisdom but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it and behold half the greatness of your wisdom was not told me you surpassed the report that I heard happy are your wives happy are these your servants who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom blessed be the lord your god who has delighted in you and set you on his throne as king for the Lord your God because your God loved Israel and would establish them forever he has made you king over them that you may execute justice and righteousness and then check this out and then it says she gave the King a hundred and twenty talents of gold that's nine thousand pounds they carried that twelve hundred miles they carried nine thousand pounds of gold that's a big group of people by the way and and and lots and lots and lots of donkeys and mules you know camels loaded down you know it says that she also brought a very great quantity of spices and precious stones in fact there were no spices such as those that the queen of sheba gave to King Solomon moreover you ready the servants of Hiram and the servants of Solomon who brought gold from Oh fear which we read about here a little bit ago they did that shipping thing together brought algum wood and precious stones and the King made from the algum woods supports for the house of the Lord and for the king's house Liars also and harps for the singers there never was seen the like of them before in the land of Judah and King Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba all that she desired whatever she asked besides what she'd brought to the King so she turned and went back to her own land with her servants and then in the last verses of the chapter it begins to talk just about Solomon's wealth he says the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold interesting number is it not in light of the rest of what we know about the Bible but that comes to 25 tons of gold annually 2025 tons of gold annually besides that which the explorers and merchants brought and all the kings of Arabia and the governors of the land brought gold and silver to Solomon so every time every time a king or some nobleman came to Solomon to have an audience with him he'd bring gifts and they would bring gold and they would bring other things and and what do you give to the man who has everything I mean what do you give to a guy who you know a mass is 25 tons of gold per year it's like I'm gonna bring him something special like what you know he can buy anything he wants do you have any of those people on your Christmas list we hate them all I know verse 15 says King Solomon made 200 large yields of beaten gold and 600 shekels of beaten gold went into each shield and that's about seven and a half pounds of gold I mean if you got gold the burn why not put it in a shield you know what these shields would not have been used for war because you know that gold is a very soft metal and it's not really very good you know for stopping a spear a sword or something sharp they had a lot of sharp things back then so this is like we'll make these shields for parades how about or maybe just to kind of look nice maybe they're just for decoration you know and then it says that he went on also and made 300 shields of beaten gold 300 shekels of gold went into each shield and again that's just about four pounds and the King put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon what is the house of the forest of Lebanon that's Solomon's Palace but it wasn't in Lebanon it was made out of the wood from the forest of Lebanon so they called it the house of the forest of Lebanon but it was in Jerusalem okay so that's just what he called his house I you know it's kind of like the English you know the British they name their their houses or their estates or whatever so his palace was that's what it was called verse 17 the king also made a great ivory throne and overlaid it with pure gold I mean isn't this the extent of opulence if I could get a throne of just ivory I'd be happy you know but you're kind of like sitting around looking at this thing going I don't know there's something just not right well what else do we have well we've got a lot of gold and more coming all the time you know let's overlay it with gold how do you know the thing is ivory it's got gold on top you know it's like I don't get this check out this this throne that he had built the throne had six steps and a footstool of gold which were attached to the throne and on each side of the seat were arm rests and two Lions standing beside the arm rests not seat not sitting I've looked at lots of drawings it's really funny if you ever looked this stuff up I'll do this once in a while on the internet I'll just Google you know like Solomon's throne and look at the illustrations and you know it's like and not one of them were the Lions standing they were all seated and I'm thinking didn't you read the text you know says they were standing hey if I was the King and I wanted to strike a little fear and somebody I'd have Lions standing you know like they're about to boom you know sort of you know what I'm sitting you know licking their paws or something like that whatever you know it's like yeah anyway so they're standing and then it says while twelve lions stood there one on each end of a step of the six steps nothing like it was ever made for any Kingdom if you're gonna you imagine coming into the palace and you walk into Solomon's throne room and you you you get in there and there are all these lions going standing on the steps leading up to his ivory throne covered in gold and you're gonna go up there and ask him what you know can we have a dollar or two something I don't know imagine nothing like it and I imagine people came just to see some of that stuff all King Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold of course they were and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon which is his palace were pure gold silver was not considered as anything in the days of Solomon for the kingship went to Tarshish with the servants of Hiram once every three years the ships of tarshish used to come back bringing gold silvery ivory Apes and peacocks we need a few of those around the kingdom because you can't ever have enough apes and peacocks around the palace there's there's something about having exotic animals that just sounds very opulent doesn't it and so we you know when you think about people coming to worship you don't think about Apes running around do you I don't either but you know Solomon had Apes thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth and riches and in wisdom and all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom which God had put into his mind every one of them brought a present because he needed them so badly articles of silver and of gold garments myrrh spices horses and mules so much year by year and Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots and by the way that's probably the stalls that I was referring to earlier in the store city of Megiddo and twelve thousand horsemen whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem and he ruled over all the kings from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt and the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone and if you've ever been to Jerusalem you know they have a lot of stone so that gives you a little sense of how much silver there was and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the shephelah and your Bible just may say lowlands which is what that means and horses were imported for Solomon from Egypt again that was the taboo God said don't do that and from all lands chapter 9 ends this way now the rest of the acts of Solomon from first to last are they not written in the history of Nathan the prophet and in the prophecy of a hygeia the Shiloh night and in the visions of IDO the seer concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat by the way those books no longer exist ok it's too bad I wish they did but they were lost Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years and Solomon slept with his fathers which is a euphemism for dying just as his father's had died and was buried in the City of David his father andraia Boehm his son reigned in his place so we kind of end here tonight with the life of Solomon the man who had great wisdom from God and yet failed to apply it in his own life and you and I are in a wonderful place where we have the wisdom of God that is given to us in the Word of God and we can do just like Solomon we can fail to apply it in our lives if we choose to you know interesting thing about God isn't it you know the most powerful being in the universe and he does not force himself on us sometimes I wish he did sometimes I wish that God you know wouldn't give me any choice in the matter but then again he would then be violating the very essence of how he made me and you which is after his own image and in his own likeness when the Bible says we were made in the image of God it doesn't mean we look like God it means that he gave us the freedom to set our own course and to choose our own destiny within the confines of what we have to choose and we can even say no to God and when you think about that it sounds incredible in fact it even sounds ridiculous that you and I who are dust could actually look to God and say to him no no the answer is no and yet we do it every day we have that choice before us every single day but the beautiful thing too is that we can also say yes yes yes Lord which is really the only answer that we should be giving to him if he is truly Lord but boy do we have a hard time coming to that place sometimes don't we oh we kick and scream and fight against you know the things of the Lord and make a fuss and make all kinds of noise and what is the best for us we resist we resist rather than just saying yes Lord I struggle just like you do in in certain areas of my life that are very challenging to let go of and to surrender you know boy every time we sing a song like we did tonight were we saying I surrender I I never take that for granted you know what I mean I mean I never I never sing that lightly is what I mean I never sing that in a sense of saying oh yes Lord I surrender I I sing it more as a prayer lord help me help me to surrender my life more to you every day because I know there's areas that I've retained just for me I know that and and I and I do that to my own undoing I retain those areas to my own undoing and the Lord is gracious in my life to bring me to a place of having to face those and that's not fun it's very challenging and very fearful to face areas that we just don't want to let go of but what the Lord has been showing me throughout the course of my life and even somewhat recently is that facing those issues and surrendering those issues or not surrendering those issues as the case may be is a matter of faith versus unbelief and the Lord has been showing me areas in my life where there exists unbelief in my heart and that's very possible you know for a believer and that's why we retain areas unto our ourselves because of our lack of faith our lack of trust if we completely trusted God with all of our heart we would give him all of those areas gladly you know we'd say yeah Lord yeah well except yeah take it yours I mean by all means take it you know but we don't do that do we we hold back certain areas whether their areas of pleasure or areas of fear or areas of desire or whatever they may be we we hold them back and we retain them for ourselves so that we might enjoy them for ourselves or or control them sometimes it's a issue of control and God is so so patient blows me away how patient he is to speak to us over a period of time and say my child I love you so much but you have held on to this area with a death grip and you need to surrender it to me if there's ever going to be a modicum of joy in your life you must surrender this area to me oh mercy I think we all know that how difficult that is sometimes whether we're surrendering our our marriage or our business or future or you know our plans our desires you know you name it our fears Wow so just because God allows us to resist him doesn't mean it's a good idea you

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Keywords: Bible, Bible teaching, Thru-the-Bible, verse by verse, Calvary Chapel, Bible study, Christianity, New Testament, Old Testament, King Solomon, Queen of Sheba, Wisdom of Solomon, Wealth of Solomon, Israel and Solomon

Id: qmJyslh-0cQ

Length: 49min 55sec (2995 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 22 2018